A PROJECT PROPOSAL

“Attitude and Perception of Saudi Red Crescent Paramedics

towards their preparedness for Disaster Management and
Response during Mass Causality Incident in Riyadh city. A cross-
sectional survey”.

SUBMITTED BY:
Background

A mass casualty incident is any episode in which emergency medical services assets, for example, work

force and equipment, are flabbergasted by the size and seriousness of casualties. During late decades,

real crises, emergencies, terrorist assaults, and debacles are turning into a plausibility in any community

including Saudi people. These crisis occurrences are influencing many individuals and causing mass

casualty incidents. This can upset the healthcare programs basic health services in the community. Many

lives could be saved if the influenced community were better prepared, with a comprehensive adaptable

response framework and emergency plans. Riyadh isn't a special case and may be powerless against

various sorts of mass casualty incidents. Riyadh is the capital of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and

furthermore its biggest city with more than 7 million populaces that records for over 22% of the number

of inhabitants in the entire country (Shalhoub, Khan, & Alaska, 2017).

Hajj is the yearly pilgrimage and mass gathering of Muslims held in the sacred city of Makkah in the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hajj is the biggest multi-national get-together around the world, with the huge

number of participants. An important component of the emergency and health care services given at

Hajj is the Saudi Red Crescent Authority, which is the sole authority entrusted with giving EMS and

emergency ambulance transportation services all over the Saudi kingdom[ CITATION Wil16 \l 1033 ].

Problem Statement

The historical backdrop of EMS in Saudi Arabia is specifically related with the Saudi Red Crescent

Authority (SRCA). The SRCA constitutes the start of pre-hospital care being given by the Saudi

government to the overall population from the early many years of the development of healthcare in

KSA. The fundamental task of the SRCA envelop giving aid relief, ambulance services and performing

compassionate work through global treaties. The EMS in Saudi Arabia is a key initially point of contact

for pre-hospital patients and the duty regarding giving pre-hospital care and transport falls on the SRCA.
This duty is comprehensive of the whole country with a few exemptions. The pre-hospital care system in

Saudi Arabia is as yet advancing in issues relating to community awareness, attitudes and the knowledge

deficiencies of pre-hospital care providers (AlShammari, Jennings, & Williams, 2017).

Aims

Paramedics is main workforce of EMS and the aim of this research project is assessment and evaluation

of the attitude and perception of Saudi Red Crescent Authority (SRCA) paramedics towards their

preparedness for disaster management and response during Mass Causality Incident.

Objectives

1- To assess the knowledge of the Saudi Red Crescent Authority’s paramedics about disaster

management and response.

2- To assess the skills Saudi Red Crescent Authority’s paramedics have about disaster management

and response.

3- What are the perceptions of Saudi Red Crescent Authority’s paramedics about their

preparedness for disaster management and response

Literature Review

A mass casualty incident is characterized as an occasion which creates a greater number of patients at

one time than locally accessible resources can oversee utilizing routine techniques. It requires

exceptional emergency arrangements and extra or exceptional help. Compelling management of mass

casualty incidents requires facilitated endeavors over a wide assortment of divisions, some of which may

have little understanding of working with the health sector. Mass casualty incident can take an

assortment of forms. Transportation frameworks (road traffic, airplane, shipping, railways) represent

some such occurrences, as does industry (substance spills, processing plant fires), structures fall or burn.
Poisonings can come about because of sources, for example, restaurants or water supplies. Episodes of

disease can rapidly overwhelm the capacity of local health care facilities to contain and treat

them[ CITATION WHO17 \l 1033 ].

Disaster preparedness, including hazard appraisal and multidisciplinary management methodologies at

all system levels, is basic to the delivery of powerful reactions to the short, medium, and long haul

health needs of a catastrophe stricken populace. In the meantime, emergency preparedness alludes to

the preparedness pyramid which includes planning, framework, knowledge and capacities, and

preparing as the significant segments of keeping up a higher state of readiness. Calamities can be

separated into three classes; natural occasions, for example, storms, dry spell, seismic tremors,

infection scourge, technological occasions , for example, blasts, structure crumple, radiological

mischances, common/political occasions, for example, strikes, psychological oppression, natural warfare

(Ibrahim, 2014)

Although there is essential role of forefront nursing staff in hospital emergency departments (EDs) in

reacting to disasters, little is thought about the knowledge and ability required by this group of health

professionals to viably complete this critical clinical role. Specifically, there is a lack literature that

straightforwardly measure parts of disaster preparedness for emergency nurses (ENs) with regards to

mass gatherings. Furthermore, there is a lack of studies on evaluating emergency nurses' perceived

knowledge and role awareness in a debacle reaction in Saudi Arabia, a nation which has yearly one of

the world's biggest mass gathering in the form of Hajj (Alzahrani & Kyratsis, 2017)

The increase in the quantity of debacles of various kinds in the course of the most recent 15 years has

been accompanied by an expanded concentrate on work by reacting health workforce, both inside

country and in worldwide response. Awareness of, and readiness for, fiascos by both communities and

healthcare providers are basic for the management of related damage, demise and loss of health service
infrastructure. The field of fiasco nursing and paramedics is in a beginning stage of development. There

is deficient evidence on calamity whereupon to base practice, together with an absence of qualified

teachers and an absence of formal education and preparing at the level of health organizations. Also, it

isn't completely fused into nursing and paramedic’s curricula. Consequently, it is vital to create fiasco

nursing, especially disaster nursing management, to guarantee that health care attendants hone with a

high state of skill and obviously comprehend their parts and the parts of others in a fiasco[ CITATION

Abd15 \l 1033 ].

A country's response to crises once they strike decides the degree of the harm. Different elements could

enhance or obstruct the response to crises. Saudi Arabic has a few factors that could ruin recuperation

endeavors and increase the vulnerability to catastrophes affect. These are generally social and

demographic factors, for example, the high rate of lack of education and language barriers among

vulnerable populaces. Lack of education and absence of legitimate training can contrarily influence

individuals' dispositions towards crisis preparedness. Not being ready to peruse security leaflets or

utilize the web and other media resources for public announcements can have unfavorable outcomes

and place the populace on higher danger of being a casualty of debacles[ CITATION Ala17 \l 1033 ].

In addition, a few people have the demeanor that "what God wills to happen, will happen"; in any case,

this negates Islamic convictions. Islamic lessons express that each individual needs to do their best in

avoiding potential risk, and also having confidence in God and depending on Him. In short, bring down

training level and lack of education prompts less compelling risk-communication and under-appreciation

about the energy of debacles. Numerous communities in Saudi Arabia have a higher vulnerability to the

effect of fiasco since individuals do not acknowledge chances and overlook official messages. The

helplessness to debacles and their effect is exacerbated in Saudi Arabia by different elements, for

example, the nature of the mass social events, the lack of education and miscommunication of hazard to
minority gatherings. These components every one of the have a tendency to back off preparedness

activities and make recuperation after fiascos much slower (Alamri, 2017)

The team of EMS incorporates the emergency doctors who have extra ability in EMS, the paramedics,

firefighters, and ambulance employees. The levels of care provides includes three categories; Basic Life

Support (BLS), Advanced Life Support (ALS), and care by traditional medical services experts (nurses or

doctors) working in the pre-hospital setting and even while on ambulances. While the doctors and

nurses are usually not available for the pre-hospital crisis care, a large portion of the exigencies are

overseen by paramedics, including technicians and the driver of the ambulance. A paramedic is a

prepared health proficient who is the first res-ponder for the patient in medicinal crisis. The paramedics

give out of hospital therapeutic appraisal, treatment, and care. There are varying levels of paramedic

practice and the employing authority decides their allotment to a particular level of care (Alanazi, 2012).

Today the KSA is most dynamic in a debacle and crisis response and relief, with MOH having built up an

exhaustive structure in such manner. Amid catastrophes and crises, the MOH Committee assesses and

follows up on the event keeping in mind the end goal to evaluate how to best manage them, particularly

with regards to health related areas. The Committee at that point makes arrangements to guarantee

that the vital workforce in the locale is activated. Through the Committee, MOH gives medical supplies,

equipment’s and ambulances, drugs and immunizations, and decides the health areas that are generally

influenced. Preventive medicinal measures are then attempted to keep the further spread of the

emergency or crisis. To this end, the Committee may approve focal research centers to play out the

fundamental tests to help recognize the risks of specific crises or emergency (Alraga, 2017).

Disasters require an organized multidisciplinary reaction to guarantee that the vital relief, which can

incorporate transportation, sustenance and water, and therapeutic supplies, touches base at the

opportune place at the perfect time. The three-pronged way to deal with fiasco reaction includes
medical treatment as paramedics, doctors and medical caretakers, fire division personnel, and security

forces that can incorporate the military. Calamity respondents can be looked with unusual

circumstances in which the expert’s ethics that apply in routine crises and health care situations might

be tried. It is fundamental for all fiasco respondents to guarantee that the treatment of debacle

survivors fits in with essential ethical principles and isn't affected by different inspirations (Geale, 2012).

Methodology

This will be a descriptive cross-sectional survey to examine knowledge, skills and perception of Saudi

Red Crescent Authority paramedic about their preparedness and response for disaster management.

The Modern Standard Arabic version of the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool (DPET) will be

used to collect the data from paramedics. Convenience sampling will be done and all the paramedics

(including nurses, technicians) available at the centers of the Saudi Red Crescent Authority in Jeddah will

be included in study.

The self-administered questionnaire will be delivered to the addresses of the paramedics along with

covering letter. The each participants will return the filled questionnaire in a sealed envelope. The study

was approved by the appropriate ethics committees. Confidentiality was ensured by having the

completed questionnaires returned in sealed envelopes. Statistical analyses for the data were carried

out with SPSS version 15. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample characteristic.

Tentative time lines will be as following

Timelines

Time lines
December January February
Activities
W1 W2 W3 W4 W1 W2 W3 W4 W1 W2 W3 W4
Proposal writing
Approval from the board
Data Collection
Data entry and editing
Report writing
Submision of report
Presentation

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